... with open eyes, and a generous heart, there is awe 'round many a corner ...

Saturday, 26 January 2013

National Day (1) - Australia Day

Celebrating Australia Day is a recent phenomenon. When I was young one would not be caught dead exhibiting love-of-country in any emotional way in public. I have been trying to think when all this changed, and think it may have been about 1988, the Bicentennial. Now the country is awash in the day.

Well, some of the country is. Other parts of the country regard 26th January as 'Invasion Day'. You see, this wide brown land was already occupied by an ancient people and an ancient culture. A people who revered the land, but did not have structures for land 'ownership'. Land was a shared resource. Hence, an invasion of convicts and their keepers was always going to get the upper hand.

But the continent was never 'terra nullius'.

These photographs were made at a Welcome Ceremony at sunrise on Australia Day 2011 in the Sydney Botanic Gardens.

28 comments:

Wonderful photos, Julie. Yes, North America was invaded too, a fact that many of the invader's progeny choose to forget. The First Nations people here also believed in sharing, a concept almost totally absent in European thinking. OOPS! Time to get off my soapbox!

Wonderful photo and very colourful. Yes, indigenous people certainly are the losers when new "settlers" arrive on their shores. I wonder if that has occurred on all continents of the world...I imagine it has. Unwittingly you captured the intrusion by including the photographer on the right side of your photo!